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- japanese
spitzies since 1986 and australian shepherds since 2000 -
Our home
Snowtime´s
is a small homekennel located near Savonlinna, eastern Finland and is owned by me,
Merja Tiainen, with my family. Allthough term "kennel"
sounds funny because all of our dogs are pets, live with us inside
our house and participate to our everyday life. We have had
dogs in our family for
all of my life, since 1970. I got my first own dog
at 1986 and started to hobby obedience, agility, shows etc. Among my daily job as a biologist i am working
with my PhD studies.
Interesting job and relaxing freetime with my beloved dogs keeps me happy
:)
At this moment we have two australian
shepherds (Xena and Rasse) and three japanese spitzies (Sissi &
Accel & Haru), who also spent time occasionally with my parents. I have owned aussies since 2000 and been interested and
learned more about the breed since. Japanese spitzies has been the interest of
our whole family for many years now, since 1986. My parents have previuosly owned
also japanese spitzies
and at this moment Sendo is co-owned by my sister. Since
my kennel is very small, I have placed three females with breeding terms, as i want to keep few dogs to myself to have enough time
and training for everyone. Also these females live as a family members in
their own homes.
I like to train
for example obedience,
tracking,
agility and search. So far all my adult
dogs have got a result (at least from first class) from obedience trial :) I
have competed with all four of them at classes
1 - 3. Rasse
and Xena have advanced in third class, Sissi to 2nd class and Accel has
got a result from 1st class. Both aussies have passed BH-trials and i train and have participated at
tracking trials with both of them. Rasse has now retired because of his health
issues. With Xena i have started to interest more
about herding as Xena is natural what comes to that. So far we have no own sheeps
so we have very seldom opportunities to go herding, but i am planning to get my
own sheeps someday in the future. We also participate to dogshows time to
time. Japanese
spitz and australian shepherd are wonderful breeds but they demand some basic
rules since both breeds have some mind of their own. Read more about the
breeds; aussie
japanese
spitz
We have bred so far four japanese spitz
litters, first
litter year 2003 (M-litter), second 2004 (S-litter),
third 2006 (T-litter) and fourth 2007 (R-litter). Our breeding happends in a small scale
and we consider carefully before we make plans. Basicly i plan a litter only
when i am planning to continue breeding from that certain combination. And / or
i am planning to have a puppy myself or keep it in
the family. This is also why i don´t make litters very often. Year 2008 we are
expecting two litters, which is not typical for uss, but as the time was
suitable for uss and our aussie female
was 4,5 years old i didn´t want to wait too long for her first litter to be
born.
We have previously owned dogs in
my family who have had some kind of sickness or lack of character (these dogs
have not been used in breeding), so i have learned to appreciate basic health
and good character. Dogs I have used in breeding so far, have all been patella and eye tested and X-rayed for hips and
elbows,
but generally japanese spitzies are quite seldomly X-rayed or eye-checked
in Finland or other countries. I feel that character and working potential
(in aussies especially) are also very important and try my best to keep all
these things plus breedstandard in my mind when planning a alitter. Also
especially with japanese spitzies, you need to pay attention to inbreeding,
since many dogs are closely related in Europe. As a breeder I believe in
quality, not quantity. I believe you need to consider
the plusses and minuses for every dog, before you make decision to breed him/ her
or not and no dog should be bred too much. This is also why our male dogs
are used & available to breeding quite seldomly, but if interested, you are
welcome to ask more about them. My aim as
a breeder is to make a combination, from which i would be happy to take a puppy
to myself.
Snowtime´s
kennel at KoiraNet (Finnish Kennelclubs database)
Questions?
I´d be happy to answer!
Merja
Tiainen, Finland
Contact:
snowtimeskennel @
yahoo.com
(kuva: Hansu Laitala)
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